Critical Mass: Bicycling event that occurs in cities around the world on the last Friday of every month. First held in San Francisco in 1992. The rides have no central leadership and are a political protest allowing bicyclists to “reclaim the streets.”

State: The political command apparatus of capitalism that administers the economy and represses challenges to its rule. Inherently repressive even when socialists or communists run it.

CNT: Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT); Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union. Key component in the 1936 revolution against capitalism during the Spanish Civil War. Crushed by the fascists and the Communist Party. Outlawed until 1976, currently active.

Libertarian: Co-opted by U.S. right-wingers favorable to capitalism who want minimal state intervention in the economy and personal affairs. The term is used for anarchists in many parts of the world.

Anonymous: A decentralized group of hackers that targets political, corporate and religious websites with denial of service actions. Members of the group often appear in videos with Guy Fawkes masks.

Reclus: Elisee Reclus (1830--1905); French geographer and anarchist who produced a 19-volume work, La Nouvelle Geographie universelle. Banished from France for political activities including supporting the 1871 Paris Commune.

May Day: May 1, International Workers’ Day, commemorates an 1886 8-hourday rally in Chicago’s Haymarket Square. A bomb killed several cops for which eight anarchists were convicted on scant evidence and four hung. Corresponds with the pagan spring festival of Beltane.

Modern School: Founded by Spanish anarchist and educator Francisco Ferrer (1859--1909) who opened La Escuela Moderna in 1901 to educate in a “rational, secular and non-coercive setting.” He was executed after a show trial by the state for sedition in 1909. His death sparked an international movement for libertarian schools including in the United States and other countries.

Capitalism: An economic system where property is privately owned and goods and services are traded through markets. Working people are treated as resource, and profits are accumulated by a ruling class. It rewards the lucky, powerful, and devious. Depends on the often willing subjugation of the working class and poor.

Wobblies: Nickname for the Industrial Workers of the World(IWW), a member-run union based on the idea that “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common” and that workers should organize to do away with capitalism. It was founded in 1905; members are currently involved with campaigns at Jimmy Johns, Starbucks and other workplaces. iww.org.

Rocker: Rudolf Rocker (1873--1958); German-born anarcho-syndicalist writer, lecturer, and activist that, though a gentile, spoke Yiddish and enjoyed a close relationship with the Jewish anarchist movement. An active opponent to the rise of the Nazis, he emigrated to the United States in 1933 to escape persecution. His published works include the books Nationalism and Culture and Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Tubthumping: 1996 song by anarcho-punk band, Chumbawamba, which became an international hit, was on movie soundtracks, and played at sporting events. The word describes the act of passionately advocating for a cause and is derived from an old English slang term for preachers who gave fiery sermons while standing on a wash tub.

Sacco and Vanzetti: Nicola Sacco (1891--1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (1888--1927); Italian-born anarchists executed in the United States in 1927 after being convicted of murder in an armed robbery. Their trial, which attracted worldwide attention, is now commonly thought of as a huge miscarriage of justice with the conviction based on their politics and Italian heritage.

Property: The French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809--1865) first used the phrase “property is theft” in his book What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government.

Food: Food Not Bombs is an international organization dedicated to sharing free public meals with anyone who is hungry. The organization is decentralized, nonviolent, and encourages the consumption of vegan food through tasty meals. Members in different cities have resisted official attempts to crush the movement with non-violent civil disobedience. foodnotbombs.net.

Parsons: Lucy Parsons (1853-- 1942); Mexican and Native American U.S. labor and anarchist organizer. Married to Albert Parsons who was one of the anarchists hung for the Haymarket Square incident. Chicago police described her as “more dangerous than a thousand rioters.”

Flores: Ricardo Flores Magon (1874--1922); Mexican anarchist who, with his brothers, were part of the social movement that sparked the 1912Mexican Revolution.

Bonnot: The Bonnot Gang was a French anarchist illegalist group that operated in France and Belgium in 1911–12. They innovated the use of getaway cars and repeating rifles in their assaults on the rich. They died in a shoot-out with a huge force of French police and military.

Bookchin: Murray Bookchin (1921–2006) His first book, Our Synthetic Environment, was published under the pseudonym Lewis Herber in 1962, a few months before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. His later years were marked by cranky denunciations of “lifestyle anarchism.”

Sabotage: From the French, sabot, a wooden shoe that early militants threw into machines to stop production.

Waldheim: The Chicago cemetery where Goldman and the Haymarket Martyrs are interred.

Commune: Paris Commune (March-May, 1871) was a brief revolutionary socialist experiment. French government troops crushed the Communards, who set up barricades in the streets and burned public buildings. About 20,000 insurrectionists were killed. Afterward, the government arrested 38,000 and deported more than 7,000.

Anarchy: Anarchy magazine, publishing since 1980. anarchymag.org

Goldman: Emma Goldman (1869--1940) anarchism’s best known proponent. Jailed many times for political and sexual advocacy, she was deported to the Soviet Union in 1919 where she stayed until becoming disillusioned with the Bolshevik police state’s counter-revolution.

Manning: Bradley Manning, sentenced to 35 years in prison for releasing U.S. war crime and diplomatic information to Wikileaks, announced he intends to cross-gender and changed his first name.

Revolution: Spanish anarchists led by the CNT created a mass-based worker and peasant revolution between 1936–39 that was undone by an unholy alliance of Stalinists and fascists.

Freedom: Freedom newspaper was established in London in 1886 by Peter Kropotkin and others and continues today. freedompress.org.uk.

Black Flag: The international symbol of anarchy, although some say, “Burn all flags!” Also, hardcore American punk band formed in 1976.

Marx: Karl Marx resorted to slanders, intrigues and trickeries to expel Bakunin from the organization leading to the distortions of later authoritarian state socialism.

Black Bloc: Militants at demonstrations dressed in black and masked to hinder identification; often associated with anarchists and property damage. Developed in the 1980s in the European autonomist movement’s protests.

Bound Together: Anarchist book store at 1369 Haight Street, San Francisco for 35 years.

Consensus: Consensus decision-making seeks the consent of all participants.

Indy: The Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia or IMC) is a global participatory network of radical journalists that report on political and social issues. indymedia.org and indymedia.us.

One Big Union: The 20th century IWW strategy for uniting all unions into one formation to overthrow capitalism and establish workers’ control.

Dreads: Or, dreadlocks hair style originally from Africa but associated with Jamaican Rastafarians. How to at dreadheadhq.com.

Mutual Aid: Peter Kropotkin, an anarchist but also a Russian prince, published Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution in 1902. Written in response to Social Darwinism after studying cooperation in nonhuman animals, in pre-feudal societies and medieval cities, and in modern times, he concluded that cooperation and mutual aid are the most important factors in the evolution of species and the ability to survive. A key concept for anarchists as opposed to the competition of capitalism.